


For I have loved you with a heart of smoke

by galwednesday



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Happy Ending, M/M, but not gory or violent, lots of ambiguity, oh gosh how to tag this, very few concrete details, very mild horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 09:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12385128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galwednesday/pseuds/galwednesday
Summary: Bucky reached up to pat Steve’s cheek reassuringly, missed, and hung onto his neck instead. “What happened to you?”“I joined the army.”Bucky’s unfocused eyes drifted over him. This Steve washuge. It occurred to Bucky that maybe they were in heaven, where Steve had the strong, healthy body he never got to have on earth. It struck him as unfair. Steve had never deserved to be sick; why did he only get to be healthy after he was dead? “Are we dead?”“C’mon, Buck, I need you to focus on me, okay? We have to get out of here. Can you walk?”It didn’t occur to Bucky until much later that Steve had never answered his question.





	For I have loved you with a heart of smoke

**Author's Note:**

> Because I spent this weekend listening to Halloween playlists and watching the Stranger Things trailer and wanted to write something to fit the mood. Happy October, everyone!

Steve chases Fury’s shooter up the stairs, down the hallway, up to the roof. The shooter catches his shield at full speed--metal on metal, hand against edge. 

The shield thuds hard against Steve’s chest. He looks down for a fraction of a second, just to angle his hand as he catches it so he won’t lose a thumb, and when he looks up the shooter is gone. 

No man can move that fast.

Steve doesn’t mention it to anyone. He doesn’t let himself believe it, in case believing it makes it impossible, Orpheus’ failure a warning in the back of his mind. But that, right there--that’s the moment he knows.

  


* * *

  


Rumlow doesn’t ask. 

He doesn’t ask how old the Asset is. He doesn’t ask about the metal arm that seems to move before the Asset is awake, the gleam of light on metal plates shifting just before the Asset opens its eyes, a split-second warning to get the fuck out of range before the Asset is upright and reaching for you with metal fingers. 

He doesn’t ask about the words that bring the Asset into line, that transform its wild lunges into full-body shudders into obedient stillness.

Most of all, he doesn’t ask about the red book. Nobody but Pierce gets to touch it. Rumlow has heard rumors the book goes all the way back to Zola, but when the trainees start gossiping about it Rumlow leaves the room, because he _doesn’t want to know_.

The Asset moves inhumanly fast. It never fails missions. It heals from wounds that would leave a mortal man dead three times over.

There are all kinds of theories about what the Asset is. Ghost. Demon. Revenant. Grim reaper. Even alien, which had almost tempted Rumlow to wade into the conversation just to tell the guy to fuck off, this wasn’t Area 51, but no matter how outlandish the theories get, Rumlow keeps his mouth shut.

Pierce encourages the rumors. Truth is harder to spot through a fog of wild guesswork, and Pierce guards actual information about the Asset very, very carefully. 

Rumlow has worked with the Asset longer than any other Hydra agent but Pierce, and the only reason he hasn’t already been reassigned to another team (or “reassigned” to an unmarked grave) is that Rumlow never, _ever_ asks.

  


* * *

  


“Bucky?” Steve says, lowering the shield automatically.

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

  


* * *

  


_Subject thirty-seven died on the table. His body was still warm when Zola scurried down the hallway, throwing a panicked look over his shoulder at the American soldier invading his facility. Yet another failure, but there had been something promising about this one, something that made Zola wish he’d had time for the usual autopsy._

_Zola had saved his notes, of course, but most of his samples were still in the laboratory. Perhaps once the American had left, if the facility wasn’t lost, Zola could find a way to retrieve them, maybe even recover the corpse--_

_An enraged howl, more animal than man, roared throughout the factory. The American had found the subject’s body._

_Zola gave up on thoughts of salvage and ran faster._

  


* * *

  


“He doesn’t know you,” Sam says, gentle but firm.

“He will.”

  


* * *

  


_Sergeant Barnes was pulled back to consciousness by an ache in his chest. A hand pressed over his heart with bruising pressure._

_“Bucky?”_

_The relief made him start smiling before his eyes were open. “Steve?”_

_Steve looked wrong, his jaw too square and his shoulders too wide, but that was definitely Steve’s face looking down at him, eyes terrified like Bucky had never seen them before. The eyes, not the jawline, worried Bucky. “It’s me. It’s Steve.”_

_“Steve?” Bucky reached up to pat Steve’s cheek reassuringly, missed, and hung onto his neck instead. “What happened to you?”_

_That was better; some of that awful fear bled out of Steve’s face. “I joined the army.”_

_Bucky’s unfocused eyes drifted over him. This Steve was_ huge _. It occurred to Bucky that maybe they were in heaven, where Steve had the strong, healthy body he never got to have on earth. It struck him as unfair. Steve had never deserved to be sick; why did he only get to be healthy after he died? “Are we dead?”_

_“C’mon, Buck, I need you to focus on me, okay? We have to get out of here. Can you walk?”_

_It didn’t occur to Bucky until much later that Steve had never answered his question._

  


* * *

  


The Asset stands on the helicarrier and faces the Captain.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. I gave you blood and bone and breath.”

These words are heavy. They carry the same weight as the words in the red book, but without any orders, without the obligation of obedience. The Asset doesn’t know what to do with them. 

“You’re my friend,” the Captain says. “You’ve always been my friend.”

The Asset believes him. But the mission imperative still drums behind his eyes, still drives him onward. He cannot falter. 

They fight, as they are meant to, for stakes the Asset doesn’t understand. The Captain challenges him even though he is clearly holding back his full strength. For the first time, the Asset is fighting his match.

The Asset is glad, in the secret space inside of him that Hydra does not own, that if he fails, if the Captain kills him, then he will die at the hands of a friend. He died alone once before. He doesn’t want to do it again. 

The Asset fails the mission. 

The Captain falls.

The Asset follows. 

  


* * *

  


_Every attempt to replicate Erskine’s serum failed. Scientists studied his notes and concluded they were incomplete; even Erskine and Stark’s first attempt should have failed. There was no natural explanation for how skinny, sick Steve Rogers had emerged from the vita ray chamber tall and hale and thrumming with power._

_“Well,” demanded a military general tried beyond patience, “is there an_ unnatural _explanation?”_

_Peggy Carter might have known, but Peggy Carter wasn’t talking. Peggy Carter guarded a vial of Steve’s blood like it was a holy relic and an unexploded bomb all in one. Every attempt to coerce her into giving up the vial or revealing its secrets failed, often spectacularly. Meanwhile, Captain America and his men sliced through occupied Europe like a flaming sword through frost._

_What was the sense, quiet-voiced men eventually concluded, in digging deeper? Whatever Steve Rogers was, whatever Erskine had made of him--well, he was on their side, wasn’t he? What else mattered?_

_The military closed the inquiry into Erskine’s serum, classified their findings (or lack thereof), and buried them in the deepest hole they could find._

  


* * *

  


The Captain’s lips are blue and cold. His chest lies still. Even after the Asset turns him onto his side and drains the water from his lungs, the Captain’s heart does not beat.

The Asset died once before. He died alone, alone and afraid, and then the Captain found him.

_I gave you blood and bone and breath._

“Please,” the Asset says. He lays his metal hand on the Captain’s chest, over his heart. “I need to give it back.”

He seals his mouth over the Captain’s, and breathes.

  


* * *

  


When the SHIELD agents find them, they are curled together on the riverbank. Captain America is pale but breathing, his wounds sluggishly knitting together. The Winter Soldier is half under him, Rogers’ arms wrapped around him, his face buried in Rogers’ chest. 

Even half-unconscious, Rogers doesn’t let the agents pull them apart. When they approach, he opens his eyes and glares until they retreat to form a perimeter and wait for the Black Widow.

It isn’t until the Black Widow coaxes Rogers into a waiting ambulance, the Winter Soldier stumbling along at his side, that the SHIELD agents see the Soldier’s metal arm is gone. All that’s left is skin, all wounds long since scarred.

Much to Tony Stark’s loudly-proclaimed frustration, no trace of the arm is ever found.

  


* * *

  


The first words out of Steve’s mouth when he wakes up in the hospital are addressed to the Soldier. “Do you know me?” 

Natasha doesn’t shift in her seat or do anything to betray her sudden tension, but she goes on high alert, every muscle in her body ready to move fast if the answer to that question requires it.

Steve had passed out in the ambulance. They put the Soldier in the hospital bed next to Steve’s, at Natasha’s insistence. Either one of them would have put up a fight at being separated, and she wants them both where she can see them. 

Sam Wilson is asleep in the chair on Steve’s right. A bunch of balloons printed with GLAD YOU’RE NOT DEAD, courtesy of Tony, are tied to a basket of fruit on the nightstand. The Soldier spent all morning watching them sway in the tiny breeze from the room’s air vent, his face smoothed into serenity by the painkillers flowing through his IV.

Natasha observes from her chair in the corner. It will be a long time before she lets them out of her sight. Steve knows why she’s watching and doesn’t mind, and the Soldier barely seems to notice she’s there. She remembers him, a little, as a fascinating nightmare. He had taught her and the other Red Room fledglings to fight in vicious silence. The Soldier had been as careful with the girls as he was allowed to be, a surprisingly gentle monster. 

“You’re Steve.” The Soldier’s eyes are soft. His lips curve and he reaches out with his right arm to grasp the rail on Steve’s bed. “You gave me breath, and I gave it back.”

Steve smiles back and covers the Soldier’s hand with one of his own. His eyes drift closed. The Soldier watches calmly, making no effort to reclaim his hand.

Natasha looks at Steve, golden and gleaming, nearly a century old but looking like a young man in his prime, and understands, in a way she never truly had before, that the Soldier isn’t the only monster in the room. 

It’s a reassuring thought. Steve’s pursuit of the Soldier isn’t the quixotic longing of a man seeking his lover’s ghost; it’s the pull of like calling to like.

Natasha tucks her legs under herself, shifting to get comfortable in the stiff hospital chair. Steve and Sam are both sleeping, warm and safe and accounted for, and Natasha sees no reason not to join them. There will be plenty to do later, but she can let herself rest for now. The Soldier is on watch.


End file.
